Charles Dutoit leads the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America at Carnegie Hall in 2015.

Photo: Getty Images

The San Francisco Symphony severed ties Thursday with acclaimed conductor Charles Dutoit in response to allegations that the two-time Grammy winner sexually assaulted four women — grabbing their breasts, pushing himself against them and forcibly kissing them — between 1985 and 2010.

Dutoit, 81, is principal conductor and artistic director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, which has barred him from conducting two concerts in January. Dutoit’s appearances with the San Francisco Symphony stretch back three decades.

His accusers are themselves prominent musicians who shared their stories of assault and fear of retaliation by the powerful maestro with the Associated Press, which published an account Thursday of the musicians’ experiences.

Paula Rasmussen, a retired mezzo-soprano who works as an attorney in the Bay Area, said Dutoit attacked her after he lured her to his dressing room at the L.A. Opera in 1991.

“He threw me against the wall, shoved my hand down his pants and shoved his tongue down my throat,” Rasmussen, 52, told the news outlet.

Sylvia McNair, a soprano who also has won two Grammys, told the Associated Press that she was 28 in 1985 when she found herself alone with Dutoit in a hotel elevator. She was singing with the Minnesota Orchestra, and he was conducting. McNair said he held her against the elevator door and pushed himself against her.

“I remember saying, ‘Stop it!’” she said, and when the elevator door opened, she bolted.

Two other women, an opera singer and a classical musician, also told of Dutoit forcing himself on them multiple times while working with him in upstate New York and Chicago in 2006, and in Philadelphia in 2010. They declined to identify themselves for fear of being blacklisted within their field, they told the Associated Press.

The Swiss-born conductor did not respond to multiple efforts to reach him.

Dutoit made his first guest appearance with the San Francisco Symphony in April 1985 and has been a frequent visitor ever since.

He was scheduled to conduct the San Francisco Symphony for two weeks in April, leading an all-French program of music by Debussy and Ravel and a second program featuring Holst’s “The Planets.”

In a statement released Thursday afternoon, the Symphony said that another conductor will be named to lead those concerts.

Dutoit is the second world-renowned classical musician this month to be accused of serious sexual misconduct.

On Dec. 3, the Metropolitan Opera in New York City suspended James Levine, 74, its longtime conductor and former music director, pending an investigation into allegations that he sexually abused four men when they were teenagers in the 1960s and 1970s.

Levine has denied the allegations.

The stories mark the latest chapter in the surge of claims of sexual misconduct against powerful men in a range of industries, including entertainment, media and politics.

Response to the Associated Press article about Dutoit was swift.

Along with the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra canceled upcoming guest appearances by Dutoit.

The Philadelphia Orchestra, where Dutoit was chief conductor from 2008 to 2012, issued a statement saying that the organization was “horrified” to learn of the accusations.

Joshua Kosman has covered classical music for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1988, reviewing and reporting on the wealth of orchestral, operatic, chamber and contemporary music throughout the Bay Area.

In his spare time, he is the co-constructor of a weekly cryptic crossword puzzle in The Nation magazine, and has repeatedly placed among the top 20 contestants at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament.